GREEN RIVER — The Green River High School Speech and Debate Team showcased their skills Tuesday night, raising funds with smoothies and chocolate bars during an event to help send qualifiers to nationals.

The team raised more than $500 for their trip to the national debate tournament. The showcase involved stories told through character impersonations, debates, and impromptu script writing from the students. The students treated this showcase as a friendly competition and utilized an audience vote.

The first session involved humorous interpretations, an informative speech, and two impromptu performances. Spencer Morrell demonstrated vocal range with an interpretation about applying to college in 2025, voicing seven different characters and gaining laughs from the crowd. He then partnered with his sister, Georgia Morrell later in the night and they did a duo interpretation of childhood innocence.

The impromptu performances were done by giving the students select topics to choose from and they had at least three minutes to prepare before their performances. Iliana Birmingham and Lillynee Janota created a script about an open house that was clearly haunted. Another impromptu performance was given by senior Mark Hildenbrand, where he spoke about the paranormal.

Madison Korkow gave an informative speech on how color affects psychology, using the Willy Wonka movies as an example. She had accompanied the speech with an intriguing board display utilizing magnets.

The final performances were extemporaneous debates. Silas Chetterbock and James Leffers debated what the future looks like with AI and how it was either good or bad for humanity. The second debate with over the Doomsday Clock the nonprofit Bulletin of Atomic Scientists organization utilizes, with Makynzee Bagshaw arguing the calculations are accurate while Emma Johnson’s stance was that a global catastrophe is unpredictable.